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U.S. Report Makes No Call on For-Profit Schools

Claims that three private companies hired to run public schools here do significantly better -- or worse -- at improving student performance than traditional public schools cannot be substantiated, the General Accounting Office concluded in a report released today.

The three companies -- Edison Schools, Mosaica Education and Chancellor Beacon Academies -- each make claims of great success in reversing academic declines. Edison, for example, argued in recent advertisements that the annual gain at schools it runs was ''almost three times greater'' than in the average major school system.

Critics have produced reports contending that children attending Edison's schools actually do worse than students in traditional public schools.

Today's report, produced after 11 months of research by the accounting office, the investigative arm of Congress, said the work of neither the supporters nor the detractors of the movement to privatize public education satisfied minimum standards of scientific rigor.

''While the companies publish year-to-year comparisons of standardized test scores to indicate that students in schools they manage are making academic gains, they do not present data on comparable students who are not in their programs,'' the report said. It also faulted the studies for not testing students both before and after the private company's takeover, and for not controlling for demographic variations among groups of students.

The one exception was a report on an Edison school in Florida, which met the standard for scientific rigor, but showed ''no difference between students in the company's program and other students,'' the report said.

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The report is particularly important because the Bush administration and Republicans in Congress have strongly supported bringing private companies into public education, but have also insisted that policy decisions be backed by sound scientific evidence.

Under the No Child Left Behind Act, which President Bush signed into law in January, schools whose students fail to show enough progress for five years must be restructured, with control handed over to new managers. One option is takeover by private companies.

Spokesmen for the private companies portrayed today's report as a vindication, saying that the charges of their critics had not stood up to rigorous scrutiny. They acknowledged that their own claims had not met the test either, but said that for their purposes, publishing improved test scores at schools they have taken over was enough.

John E. Chubb, the chief education officer at Edison, said that the company's statistics never compare test results at its schools to other schools in a given district, because its clients, which the company identifies as superintendents and school boards, ''do not want comparisons made.''

Representative Chaka Fattah, the Philadelphia Democrat who requested the report, said, ''Parents and school boards and state governments ought to be leery of believing the claims as presented by these companies, when in fact it is extraordinarily difficult to discern whether or not they actually improve student achievement.''